Nina Burleigh is the author of three nonfiction books and is currently writing about a Bible relic forgery case in Israel, and the intriguing world of Biblical archaeology and relic collectors. Her newest book, Mirage: Napoleon's Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt (Harper Collins, 2007), chronicles the first large-scale interaction between Western civilians and Islam in the modern era. Previous books include The Stranger and the Statesman, (Morrow, 2003) about the mysterious life of 18th Century scientist James Smithson and his bequest to the nation, and A Very Private Woman: The Life and Unsolved Murder of Mary Meyer, (Bantam 1998), the true story of the unsolved murder of an American aristocrat in 1964, set in the bizarre and exclusive world of the wives of the Cold Warriors in Washington, D.C.
As a journalist, she has covered twenty years of local and national politics, law, crime, women’s issues, and pop culture based in Chicago, Washington, D.C., Paris, and New York. She traveled widely in the United States covering American elections and extensively in the Middle East, reporting from inside Iraq during the 1990s on assignment for Time. Her articles have appeared in Time, People, the Washington Post, New York Magazine, Details, the New York Observer, Elle, More, Jane, the Huffingtonpost, Salon, and other publications. She is currently a staff writer at People Magazine in New York covering human interest stories, and an adjunct professor of journalism at Columbia University.

Burleigh was born and educated in the Midwest, and began in journalism covering the Illinois Statehouse for the Associated Press. She has a Master's degree in English Literature from the University of Chicago, a Master's in Public Affairs Reporting from the University of Illinois at Springfield, and a B.A. in English from MacMurray College. Nina is married to the photographer Erik Freeland, and they and their two children live in New York.